The Old Gray Wolf (6 page)

So was Louella Smithson having a good time? Ask any private eye you know about stakeouts, and she'll tell you they're about as much fun as watching ragweed grow in malodorous back-alley trash heaps.

Nothing of interest had occurred until some twenty or so minutes ago, when a motor vehicle showed down on the country road. The shiny automobile (so she thought) looked a little bit
out of place
. Don't ask her why; even amateur PIs just
know
these things. Wishfully, Miss Louella Smithson had watched the sleek gray Ford sedan slow … hesitate as the driver presumably took a look at the happy gathering of Methodist Christians … and pass by.

Not much, but it was enough to catch Louella's eye and cause her hopes to soar.
That'll be him!

Perhaps. She would have to wait and see.

It is gratifying to report that minutes later, the same vehicle had returned and turned into the picnic grounds to park among the dozens of sedans, SUVs, and pickups already clustered there. Miss Smithson had gotten the merest glimpse of the driver exiting the automobile, and seen only an indistinct figure though her binoculars as the
person of interest
strode away from the boisterous picnic and through a thickly wooded area.
He's keeping out of sight!
And here was the clincher: the suspect was proceeding in a
southerly
direction. Yes, toward the boundary of Mrs. Francine Hooten's thirty-four-acre property, which abutted the Logan Country Picnic Grounds.

Despite this promising development, Louella was frustrated—and not without cause. First of all …
I didn't even see enough of the driver to know whether he's fat or thin or short or tall—much less get a look at his face.
On the plus side, she had gotten a glimpse at the Ford sedan's license plate, which was definitely from out of state. This would have canceled out her failure to get a good gander at the suspect
if
she had been able to read the plate—which was smudged with mud—which was suspicious because the rest of the automobile glistened like it'd just been run through a twelve-dollar automatic car wash.
He rubbed mud on the plate so somebody like me couldn't read it.
Having nothing nutritious to chew on, the lady settled for sour grapes:
It's probably only a rental car, so even if I had the plate number all I could do was trace it to Avis or Hertz or whatever.
Which probably wouldn't be of much help, because …
If the driver is a seriously professional criminal, he wouldn't have used his right name when he rented the car.
And Miss Louella Smithson had several other aggravations to contend with. The worst of these was her worry that …
The driver might not be who I hope he is.
Sigh.
He might even be another private eye, come to spy on Francine Hooten.
But that possibility was a real downer, and Louella-Ella-Ellie was determined to believe that the newcomer
was
the legendary Cowboy Assassin. And not without good reason:
Things just feel right about this.
Never underestimate the efficacy of that mysterious talent commonly referred to as “a woman's intuition.”

Among her secondary aggravations was:

There's no telling when he'll drive out onto the highway again—I could be waiting here for hours and hours.
Which annoying possibility was complicated by the grim fact that …
I drank almost a whole quart thermos of coffee and now I've got to pee but there's no place to go and if he don't show up soon I'm liable to— Oh, no!

(Oh, yes.)

There were additional aggravations that might have been worthy of mention, but under the embarrassing circumstances, our highly distressed snoop has forgotten all of them.

 

CHAPTER NINE

HER ESTATE ON THE BANKS OF THE WABASH

Francine Hooten's property might aptly be named The Hornet's Nest, but no such luck.

It is nothing fancy: a mere thirty-four acres comprised of briar-choked forest and weedy pasture without any fat livestock to crop it down. The dwelling is a 130-year-old Victorian mansion that is sorely in need of new shutters, a replacement shingle here and there, and a few dozen gallons of white paint. But, humble though it may be, the stately old manor is hearth and home for the recently deceased purse snatcher's widowed mother. Speaking of whom, the semiparaplegic Francine Hooten is a shameless Anglophile who enjoys tea and crumpets in the afternoon, rereads Jane Austen most evenings, knows all the latest gossip about the royal family, and would have a moat (complete with drawbridge and crocodiles) encircling her castle if the persnickety county building code did not prohibit it. Such an extravagance is well within her means.

It is worth mentioning that Mrs. H. has two employees. These are Miss Marcella Clay (Mrs. Hooten's maid, cook, and opinionated companion) and pale, beady-eyed, ever-suspicious Cushing—m'lady's English butler. Truly—we do not jest. Cushing is the real McCoy, and straight from Merry Olde England—whence he emigrated to the USA following a brush with the legally constituted authority. That sordid incident involved suspected illegal possession and use of a firearm on behalf of Lord So-and-So, who had encouraged the hired help to discourage a cheeky commoner who was poaching salmon from m'lord's private lake. Nothing could be proved against Cushing, on account of the fact that the alleged pistol was ditched in the River Tyne by the alleged shooter. Nevertheless, Mr. C. is unlikely to qualify for a cherished Green Card, seeing as how Scotland Yard has provided a thickish file of uniformly uncomplimentary information regarding said Brit to the U.S. Department of State, Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization—copies of which have found their way into the files of the Illinois State Police and the Logan County Sheriff's Office.

Though dimly aware of the fact that he is not overwhelmingly welcome in King George's former colony, Cushing is determined to make a go of it in the fabled Land of Opportunity. To that end, he has been displaying that sterling all-American quality that is so valued on the west side of the pond. We refer to the attribute popularly known as Get Up and Go, which in this instance involves doing more than a butler is paid to. Here is an illustrative example: despite the fact that the task is not listed as one of his official duties, the surly anachronism serves as his employer's armed-and-dangerous bodyguard. Old habits die hard.

A
PREARRANGED
RENDEZVOUS

Accompanied and aided by her live-in maid and companion, wheelchair-bound Mrs. Hooten exited a rear servant's entrance where the century-old cedar door stoop had been replaced with a gently sloping concrete ramp.

As was his habit, Roman-nosed, hawk-eyed Cushing watched from the kitchen window.

With her ever-present and seldom-used telescoping walking stick gripped tightly in her lap like a club, the testy woman pulled the brown blanket she was wrapped in tighter around her thin shoulders. Feeling more comfortable in the chill, humid air, Francine barked an order: “Take me to the rose garden, Marcella.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

“I intend to spend some time there.” She added acidly, “Alone.”

The long-suffering employee smiled. “Whatever you say.” Marcella enjoyed these brief trips out of doors. The tall, big-boned woman pushed the oak-wheeled chair as easily as if the conveyance were empty and the grade on the flagstone pathway dead level. The incline was, in fact, noticeably uphill and the live cargo tipped the scales at 156 pounds. “If I've said it once, Miz Hooten, I've said it a hunnerd times—you oughten to be so stingy. I swear—you could be Jack Benny's penny-pinchin' granmammy.”

The invalid responded tartly, “I believe you have complained about my frugality more than fivescore times, Marcella.” The voice from under the gray headscarf was gratingly raspy, like the harsh shriek of a file being drawn across the dull teeth of a rusty cross-cut saw. “But if you don't mind getting to the point, what is the focus of your concern upon this particular occasion?”

“Well, I'll tell you—a rich lady like yourself ought to buy herself one a them
motorized
chairs to wheel around in.”

“I could purchase a dozen battery-operated carts, Marcella, but what can I say?” Mrs. Hooten said it: “I am incurably old-fashioned, and frugal to a fault.”

“You're
that
, all right.” Her paid companion snorted. “But I still say—”

“Besides, if I indulged in such conveniences as motorized wheelchairs, electric dishwashers and such, what would I need to keep you around for?”

“Hah! Who'd cook your meals and pick up after your messy self—
and
stack your dirty dishes in that fancy 'lectric dishwasher.” Marcella's broad face flashed a dazzling smile. “And don't go tellin' me that you could hire somebody else to take care of you—you know well as I do that nobody around these parts'll work for you 'cause you're such a bad-mouthed ol' grouch and you don't pay enough wages to keep a mouse in cheese and crackers.”

The maid's employer smirked. “You certainly don't show any visible signs of starvation.”

“That's because I help myself to all those goodies in your pantry. This mornin' at about two o'clock, I got up and toasted about half a loaf of white bread—and I spread fancy apple butter over ever' slice and I et it all before I went back to bed!”

“I have always suspected you of committing petty larcenies at my expense, but I do wish you had not confessed. Now I shall feel compelled to count the silverware daily.”

“You go ahead and do that—all I steal is food.”

Mrs. Hooten smiled.
Dear Marcella is so entertaining.

The maid pushed the invalid toward a picket-fence gateway that opened into a circular garden which pressed halfway into a forest of oak and maple. Their daily little game and the pathway had about played out. “It's cold enough out here to freeze my shadder to the ground; I don't know why you won't stay inside by the fireplace like a normal old crank.”

“I am not an old crank. I am an aged recluse.” Francine surveyed her tiny hideaway, which was surrounded by a thick hedge. “Call me eccentric.”

“I'd call you silly, 'cept you'd cut my pay to maybe one greenback dollar an hour.”

“An option that I shall consider if you do not mend your meddling ways. But enough of this silly banter; I require a few minutes' respite from your company.” Remembering her expected guest's instructions, Francine added, “Wheel me around to the opposite side of the fountain, Marcella, and turn the chair so that I am facing the house.”

This order was carried out without comment.

“Thank you kindly. Now, you may leave me.”

Marcella gave the disabled woman a worried look. “D'you have that little gadget with the red button?”

“I do.” Mrs. Hooten pulled back her scarf to reveal the plastic pendant hanging from her neck. “When I have soaked up enough solitude to satisfy me, I shall buzz for you. Now depart this instant.” After glancing at her wristwatch, she added by way of inducement, “That inane television show that you adore came on two minutes ago.”

“Okay, I'm gone.” The sturdy woman from the Missouri Ozarks patted her employer on the shoulder. “But if I don' hear that buzzer buzz in a hour, I'll come out here and wheel you back inside whether you want to go or
not
!” Having had the last word, Marcella stomped away on the flagstone pathway.

A damp, fetid breeze played with dead leaves.

Empty minutes ticked away toward yesterday.

The pale woman was as immobile as the lichen-encrusted iron porpoise that had long ago ceased to spew water into the fountain, which bone-dry ornament was the dreary centerpiece of a garden where a dozen untrimmed rosebushes that bloomed in June were now but a withered memory of warmer, happier days. The dismal effect had not gone unnoticed by the widow who had recently been deprived of her only descendant; the wheelchair's occupant evaluated her surroundings thusly:
This place looks like a scene from an old black-and-white horror movie.
Some eighty yards away, at her shambling, nine-gable Victorian home, the rear screened door slammed shut behind the maid with a bang.
Actually, this little garden spot would make a nice cemetery.
Francine's twisted smile was bittersweet.
Perhaps I shall have LeRoy buried here.
A long, weary sigh.
Before too long, I will lay myself down beside my only son … who has been such a disappointment.

As she mused about converting her shabby rose garden into a family graveyard, Francine Hooten's imagination might well have conjured up the spirits of other members of her close-knit circle who had passed on. Such as the husband who had been shot dead by the Chicago plainclothes cop. Also Francine's brother, who'd run afoul of a rival South Side gang—and whose body had never been found.
Those Oak Park thugs probably set poor Buford into a fifty-five-gallon drum of cement and dumped him into Lake Michigan.
The sudden impression of a
presence
jolted Francine from her reverie. She had sensed neither sight nor sound, merely the slight stirring of another living creature. Her raspy voice rattled a hoarse whisper:
“Are you there?”

The reply, from somewhere behind her, was immediate: “I am.”

“You're on the far side the hedge—completely out of sight?”

Her visitor took no offense at this pointless query. “Certainly.”

“Did our intermediary explain why I require your professional help?”

“There was no need to.” There was a hint of a smile in the reply. “I manage to keep up with current events.”

“Well, just to be sure we're on the same page, it's about—”